I. What is MobileBackup

MobileBackup is a desktop files backup/restore software running under Windows environment. The uniqueness of Mobilebackup is that the files are backup to your huge (free) internet e-mail box like GMail, or Yahoo Mail after the files are compressed and encrypted. Each file is backed up as an individual e-mail and time stamped. Since the (free) internet e-mail box are always available, the users can access his/her backed up files any place in the world.

II. Why MobileBackup ?

• Availability: The backed up files are available anywhere you go in the world, as long as there is Internet connection.
• Security:  The files are encrypted before sent to the e-mail box, and decrypted after downloaded (restored) from Internet. 
• Easy to Use: It is just like Windows Explorer running on Windows 2000/XP. It taks just a few clicks to backup and restore files.
• Huge Disk Space: By the courtesy of Google, Yahoo, etc, you have 1GB-2GB e-mail box at your disposal, free.

III.Download MobileBackup

IV. Getting Started on MobileBackup

After you have installed the MobileBackup software, the first thing to do is to setup your account information in Tools -> Options. MobileBackup uses SMTP protocol to backup files and the POP3 protocol to restore files, so in order to be able to backup and restore, you will need to fill the right information into the following form:

This form has two sections: SMTP (for Backup) and POP (for Restore). MobileBackup assumes you have an account called, say, MyAccount@gmail.com. Whenever MobileBackup tries to backup a local file to this account, It will ZIP the file as an e-Mail attachment and send an e-Mail to this account.

In order to send e-Mail to this account via SMTP, MobileBackup needs to know the SMTP Server you can use. In this example, we assume you are using a Yahoo's SMTP server called smtp.sbcglobal.yahoo.net. The port number to communicate with this SMTP Server is by default 25.

Some SMTP Server, like smtp.sbcglobal.yahoo.com, needs authentication to use it, you will have to have the user name and the password filled into SMTPServerUserName and SMTPServerPassword fields.

If your SMTP Server use secured channel (SSL), then you will need to check the checkbox "Is  SMTP Server Secure". For example, Google's SMTP Server, smtp.google.com needs to check this, and the port is 465.

If you ask me why I don't just use smtp.google.com as the SMTP Server for this MyAccount@gmail.com. The reason is, as we have found, in gmail only, if you send an e-mail to yourself by using Google SMTP Server, you will not be able to see this e-mail from Google's POP protocol. That is, you can backup, but you can't restore later.

Comparing with SMTP setup, POP setup is quite straightforward. YOu enter POP Server name, POP Server Port (default is 110), check if it is secure (if it is using SSL), then the POP3 account and password.

Two fields are a bit tricky, they are SMTP Account and Domain Name. In general, in Google's case SMTP Account + "@" + Domain Name = e-Mail Address (MyAccout + @ + gmail.com=MyAccount@gmail.com) . But in some accounts, like sbcglobal.yahoo.com, the SMTP Account itself needs to be a complete e-mail address, like MyAccount@sbcglobal.net. The Domain name is still sbcglobal.net.

Once you have Options Setup correctly, you can start to backup and restore files. To Backup, just navigate to the file in your local hard disk, hightlight it, then click Backup.

Once it is backed up, the entry will become blue, with the backup date attached. To restore that blue entry, just hightlight it and click Restore. The file will be restored to a subdirectory called Restore, under your application directory. So it can be at c:\program files\Yamabay\MobileBackup\Restore.